Case Study: PAKISTAN. Mohammad Zakaria, is the mufti of Lahore's oldest Islamic religious school, Jamia Islamia. He defiantly declares that "Family planning is wrong and un-Islamic if it is practiced routinely. If it permanently stops a woman from becoming pregnant, it is harmful and illegal." Being poor, according to this prominent Islamic cleric, should not limit the size of a family. "God will provide the resources and no one will starve," he says.But is Allah truly doing a completely thorough job in providing food and other resources? NPR (National Public Radio - US) reports that "According to a new government survey, Pakistan is producing nearly 4 million babies every year, and most are born into poverty." Also important is that NPR goes on to report that in Pakistan "38 percent of all children under 5 are underweight, and according to government data, malnutrition is widespread among mothers.The lack of resources in Pakistan today invites the question whether the mufti and his teachings are not consigning millions of people to misery."

​Khasrat and Qadar Gul struggle to reconcile their cleric's teachings against contraception with husband Qadar's desire not to father more children. "We are poor and cannot afford a bigger family," Qadar Gul says. [from NPR]

Debate Question: Are the teachings of Islamic mufti, Muhammad Zakaria, and others like him consigning millions of people to misery?

"Only 0.28% (3,220,000 people) of the expected Muslim population growth (1,161,780,000) in the period of 2010-2050 would be due to conversions; 99.72% would be due to a high birth rate among Muslims." (Wikipedia) Keeping this in mind, we have these Debate Questions!

​We can all agree that the world cannot sustain an infinite amount of humans -- the world's land and food resources cannot provide for, say, 999 trillion people. Therefore there is some number that the human population should not exceed. Yet the total fertility rate of Muslims of 3.1 children per woman easily exceeds the replacement level rate of 2.1 children per woman necessary to keep the population stable. Let us recall Muhammad's directive to Muslim men: 'Marry women who are prolific for I shall outnumber the peoples by you." But at what number of people worldwide will the Muslims decide that Muhammad's directive should no longer be followed?

The Muslim population is growing at a rate of 1.8% per year. Surely there is a rate of yearly population growth that governments would have difficulty in planning for and providing needed accommodations. For example, with respect to the provision of food, the worldwide amount of arable land is definitely not growing at 1.8% per year. In addition, the number of people within a country needing to become schoolteachers may not rise as sharply as its number of Muslim children rises. The question is: does Muslim yearly population growth rates at current levels make it difficult for certain governments to successfully plan for the future?

In 2015, almost every single country on earth signed an agreement to strive to sharply curtail global warming. Yet will it be quite hard to achieve carbon-reduction goals in countries in which notable Muslim populations are increasing sharply over time?

The Muslim population in Europe is expected to grow from 43.5 million in 2010 to 70.9 million in 2050, a sharp 63% increase. By 2050, one out of every ten Europeans will be a Muslim (if projections hold true). Given notably higher total fertility rates, the Muslims of Europe will generally be younger than their nonMuslim European counterparts.Recalling massacres committed by Islamic jihadis in France in 2015, and killings elsewhere in the past dozen years in Spain, the United Kingdom, Holland, and elsewhere, we can debate the question: "Will the growth of the Muslim population in Europe coincide with frequently more deadly clashes with the nonMuslim majority?​